I read an excellent article recently in Forbes talking about the challenges of hiring so-called perfect job candidates. It raises an interesting point however; what is the perfect job candidate and how would one even defining what perfect is?

The problem, as alluded to in the article, was how one assesses the qualifications of a candidate. Given that a hiring manager or recruiter only has a resume to go by, the decision process invariably takes an intuitive, gut-feel approach. Assuming the candidate has already been passed through some filter to ensure at least minimal qualifications, the general process taken is a brief scan of the resume looking at the names of companies and schools attended, then a quick glance at the overall experience based on job titles and length of various job stints, and lastly a passing review of some key accomplishments. However, missing in this process is any insight into whether the candidate possesses the skills needed for the job, whether these are the functional/technical, management or leadership skills.

To gain this insight, people need to be able to identify specifically the skills required for the position and the skills a person has. However, resumes and job descriptions have done a poor job to date with this process. Skills are much more specific and wide ranging. A senior level professional may bring well over 150 discernable skills with them to a job, which in turn may need a multi-disciplinary skill-set across many corporate functions. The way of the future is to rigorously define the skills a company needs and to build the organization with positions that cull from this pool of skills. This in turn gives hiring managers the actual measurement for evaluating talent.

Which leaves us with the issue we started with: what is the perfect job candidate? If jobs are defined as stated above and these profiles are perfected by top performers in those jobs, the job profiles become the absolute top standard by which to recruit or develop talent by. The result is that the proverbial perfect candidate is never identified, but a series of highly qualified candidates emerge that possess the skills needed to be successful plus the gaps in skills that can be developed over time leading towards the next career stage, and a more satisfied, engaged employees.